No Rob is not paying me to write this article, however, I am open to a small fee.   I’ve had the privilege of watching Christian radio very close over the last 30 plus years.  I love how radio has changed over the decades.  I believe the biggest changes in radio will take place over the next 5 years.  I have been beating the drum that radio needs to find out what is next and how to ride the wave.  Those who figure it out will be successful and those who don’t will be left behind, perhaps even out of the radio business.

If you say that you work at a radio station, you are already behind the eight ball.  You should be working at a communication company that has many different outlets in reaching it’s listeners and yes even viewers and that is exactly where Rob Dempsey at His Radio fits in.

If you are simply looking for music, time, temp and traffic than the following morning show would not fit your station.  Rob’s morning show has a 5 camera shoot, providing listeners with amazing content that is heard over the radio and yes seen online.  His morning show is nothing shy of brilliant.  His first year in providing video of his breaks, he saw more than 1.2 million downloads.  Rob has found a way to create community with his listeners and using the TV aspect has brought the listeners into the studio with Rob.

Rob and the team spend countless hours putting together content both that works for audio and video.  Many videos include those in the community, content from Youtube and artists that stop by the studio.

Just last Christmas Rob did a great radio piece that worked well for both radio and video by making a Christmas wish come true.  Warning, you might be fighting tears while watching this break from the morning show.

Recently Kirk Cameron stopped by Rob’s show to push his new Christmas movie.  Instead of doing the normal interview, Rob took time to place Kirk at a local Chick Fil A for some fun and of course had the camera rolling.  This one break from his morning show went viral and landed up on Good Morning America.

Artists often stop by the studio.  Listeners love hearing their favorite artists but you can see how video would draw them to a web site so they could actually see the interview as well.  I love this piece with Brandon Heath.

Recently the morning team built the first TV trailer for radio so they can film while on location.  Needless to say, if you see Rob pop up just about anywhere your going to see camera’s following him.

I caught up with Rob to ask him a few questions and yes, he was on the treadmill when I asked him some of these questions.

• When did you start video for your morning show?

• How many cameras do you shoot with?
  • Rob:  4 Stationary GoPro and 1 mobile Black Magic Camera.

• How many people do you have on the morning show?
  • Rob:  2 Co-Hosts and 1 Producer On air and Camera.

•   How many off air helping to run your morning show?
  • Rob:  2 to 3 for video support.

• So how many downloads did you have the first year?
  • Rob:  1.2 million videos viewed and loaded in the first year.

• Are you seeing your online streaming growing?
  • Rob:  An overwhelming YES now at 2,004 million videos viewed as of 1/2/15.

• Why do you feel it’s important to provide your morning show on video?
  • Rob:  When was the last time you watched a video? What did you watch it on? Most people would tell you that they watched a video today and on their smartphone.  This is why we started video.  We wanted to be were the people are, on their devises they are using today and tomorrow.  I really believe that this helps to build deeper relationships with the people we spend time with on the radio everyday. This type of radio helps to make a greater impact and ultimately sharing the gospel in their lives .

• How often do you do live remotes and do you film on location?
  • Rob:  Our goal for 2015 is two each month and this will grow to one a week laster this year.  We built a fully custom LIVE radio/video trailer that brings the whole show on the road.

The morning team at His Radio is Rob Dempsey, CO-host Alison Storm, producer Jim Mann, and our executive video producer DJ. Also, video switcher JD.  This group of folks make up one of the best morning shows in our industry.

I would encourage you to tune in and also watch what Rob and the morning team are doing at His Radio.  At first you might be thinking this is way to much work and I agree it can be.  I would encourage to begin small,  just like Rob did.  I think you’ll be amazed at how quickly things will grow.  Go and make 2015 an out of the box experience for your radio station!  If you are doing something out of the box at your station, I would love to hear from you.  Email, Bill@BillScottGroup.com.

David Smallbone and family

I grew up in a post Christian country that didn’t have Christian radio early on, so to now live in the US and have had the benefit of this ministry resource for my children, is something I don’t take for granted and for which I am very thankful.

Having started in the industry in Oz some 40 plus yrs ago, my first label was mainstream but they allowed me, surprisingly, to sign a Christian group ( Family ) who became quite successful even getting to the point of touring as support to Evie! I then tried my hand at radio and lasted as promotions manager for a secular station for a year before I felt the call to get into the CCM thing full time.

God willing, I’ve been involved ever since, enjoying some very special moments but also some very dark days. The hard times got my attention and I took them as a discipline to go deeper in my relationship with Jesus.

When Bill suggested I drop you all a note, I initially thought no, but then on a second thought, it occurred to me that I had a responsibility to encourage you just like you have encouraged my family and I.

Probably the best thought that came to mind was to suggest that in personal and business matters, we look at putting all our decisions through the ministry filter. I too often think us men make important decisions from a commercial perspective and not through the God’s economy thought pattern. The older I get, the more I want to be involved in the miraculous as against the boring commercial position. There is something about the calling of the faith walk that keeps us on our knees I believe.

Thanks for your commitment to what’s important. It is a joy for my family and I to be in this ministry partnership with you.

Happy new year. old bloke ( just turned 65 folks )

David Smallbone

David is the father and manager for Joel and Luke (For King and Country) and Rebecca St. James.  Most of you already know that but I wanted to make sure everyone knew.  David and his family have been an encouragement and fan of Christian radio for years.  David is a good friend to many of us.

Bill Scott

I can remember before underwriting became a big deal in non-commercial radio.  My first Christian station that I worked at in Central Florida survived by it’s on air fundraisers 100%.

Now this is crazy but many of you will understand.  As a radio guy, I still looked forward to stop sets when I was working in non-commercial radio.  I felt like they made us feel more commercial or more like real radio if we had to take breaks just like the other guys.  I wanted to be one of the big boys lol.

When non-commercial radio found out about how much underwriting could be worth to their station, it was like finding a buried treasure.  In an instant we found free money.  Our budgets were able to increase.  Money was falling from the sky.  To be honest, most stations at that point really needed the shot in the arm financially.

Thirty years later I look back and wonder what did we trade when we crossed over the bridge to underwriting?  There’s no doubt the more underwriting you do the less money you raise from your on-air fundraisers.   Some would argue that it’s worth it and perhaps they are right.  I think from a programming point of view we gave up something that no one else could touch.  Christian stations compete in the ratings with the mainstream stations.  There are so many things that mainstream is able to do that we just cannot compete with because of our smaller budgets.  However, the one thing they couldn’t compete with us on, we gave away.  We didn’t have to play commercials.  Yeah, I know it’s called underwriting but at the end of the day it’s a commercial to a listener.  Commercial stations have to play spots all day long, they have zero choice.  They cannot just play music, they have to sell time.  I would imagine commercial stations would freak out if one of their competitors stopped playing commercials or underwriting.   Can you imagine only stepping down once or twice and hour for a minute or two for underwriting?  That is something they could never compete with.  We could honestly be playing more music and providing more content than the station across the street and there would be nothing they could do about it.  This could be your secret weapon.

I travel the country each week.  I listen to Christian radio stations all the time.  I listen to stations I consult and those I don’t.  The other day I was listening to a Christian non-commercial station and in just one stop set they played 11 elements.  It was a long commercial break, even though it was underwriting.  There was 22-24 elements total in two stop sets each hour.  They were playing as much as the local Clear Channel station in their market.  The underwriting sounded very commercial.

There is a connection problem between you and your listeners when you don’t sound non-commercial.  Stations rant and rave all day long how they are listener supported but yet they sound very, very commercial.  WGTS in DC recently deleted their underwriting program and started over.  They moved business support to their web site and have limited underwriting to a couple of minutes each hour.  The underwriting they kept on the air are for other non-profits.  They even dropped their sponsors for traffic and news, that of course cost WGTS money out of pocket.   WGTS has seen an increase from listener support, why?  because they sound listener supported.  Read this article from Kevin Kruger from WGTS about why he killed his underwriting program.

I am not sure there is a right way or wrong way of doing this.   At the end of the day, I think we have given away the one thing that mainstream radio cannot compete with us on.  The purpose of this blog is to cause us to think.  Perhaps there’s a great balance that your station has found.  The bottom line is you have to do what is right for your station.  I’d love to see some comments and idea’s on this post.

Brian Sanders – Executive Vice-President

Why We Did It.

Allow me to begin by saying I’ve been a friend with Bill Scott for nearly 25 years.  I’m not sure what that says about mine or his ability to choose friends.  Over those years, Bill has gained my respect for his expertise in fundraising and his ability to coach others to be better fundraisers.

Recently, Positive Alternative Radio announced three major benefit initiatives for our team members, which included volunteering at other non-profits, financial wellness training from Dave Ramsey’s organization and tuition-free classes from Liberty University Online.

Why?

Why did PAR do this?

That’s the question Bill asked.

A few years back PAR leadership began to consider the question, “What kind of culture do we want to build?”   We landed on Starbucks.

Starbucks has an amazing corporate culture.  So, the leadership team began reading every book about Starbucks, watching videos of their CEO Howard Schultz and trying to understand how to birth that culture within Positive Alternative Radio.

It really comes down to our Ways of Being.   Most companies have core values.   Those “core values” become a pretty little plaque that hangs on a wall that no one every thinks about.   They’re stagnant.  Lifeless.

Ways of Being are actionable.

Happy is behind the board. Brian Sanders to the left and Frankie Morea to the right.

We’ve spent a considerable amount of time, and will continue to do so, emphasizing and being the example of PAR’s Ways of Being.

The Ways of Being are a general framework that allows every person in the organization to know how to be and what they should be.

Our Ways of Being are:

Be Passionate

Be Honest

Be Caring

Be the Standard

Be Creating the Future

As leadership, there are now two major things we had to do.

One, we had to live these out in front of our teams.  Unless they see us doing these things and emphasizing them as we did them, then this would be useless.

Second, we would have to systemically do things for our team members to stoke the Ways of Being in their lives.

For example, when we unveiled the education benefit through Liberty University it accomplished both of those things.  It told the team member that PAR cares, that we are passionate about their future and we want them to be the standard of all Christian media.

Because PAR leadership has lived this out for our team, this encourages the team to live it out with our customers, listeners, donors and other team members.

Let me bottom-line the issue now.  We did those initiatives because they were the right things to do.  If the leadership of an organization does not care and invest in the lives of its team members, the team members will not invest or be passionate about the mission and vision of the organization.

The real question many are asking is this…what’s the return to PAR?

We are able to honor our team members and meet some of their dreams and needs that go beyond the office and touch their families and their future.

We hope it makes for a more passionate team members who puts their all into what we do.  Our hope is that what they do no longer is just a job or a position, but a pssion.

It makes it harder for other organizations to hire away your best talent.

One of the roles of a leader is to be an evangelist for the mission and vision of the organization.  As we invest in our people, they will become evangelists for the organization.

Team members who are passionate about the organization will work harder and smarter to achieve the mission and vision.

When PAR goes in search of talent this will make us appealing to potential candidates.

It sets us apart.  By investing in our team it allows PAR to be seen, hopefully, as an industry leader.

Finally, as leadership, we get the assurance that we did the right thing.  You can never go wrong by investing in your team.  Never.

Brian Sanders

Positive Alternative Radio

Executive Vice-President

Brian is the Executive Vice President of Positive Alternative Radio in Blacksburg.

PAR has six brands which include Spirit FM in Lynchburg, VA; WCQR in Kingsport, TN; Positive Hits, WPER in Richmond/Fredericksburg, VA; Joy FM in Winston Salem, NC; Walk FM in Ashland, KY, Huntington,WV; and Joy FM in Union City, OH.

You can read more blogs by the PAR team at www.dearchristianradio.com

Bill Scott

Radio is trying to find it’s place in this new season of technology and how gate keepers are being bypassed by consumers.  I often hear from radio stations, “Well, we are local and nothing will ever replace a radio station focused on it’s community.”  It’s like that is the default response from those in radio.  Have no fear because time, weather and traffic is found on our station.  Not to be mean but who the heck cares.

It wasn’t that long ago we all tuned into our local TV stations at night to find out what the weather would be and then used radio to keep track of current weather conditions, time, traffic and also to find out the latest things going on in our community.  Radio had what you needed.  It’s amazing how many stations continue to give the time, temp, traffic as though the listener is actually sitting on the edge of their seat waiting on that information.  I’m not saying that you cannot give that info but at the end of the day it’s just not a huge deal any more.  I pull up my phone to get the headline news, current temperatures, 10 day weather forecast, exact time not to mention watching traffic updates on my phone in real time.  If I want to find out what’s going on in my community this weekend, I simply google it.  Again, I am not saying some of those items shouldn’t be in your broadcast but don’t think more of it than what it actually is.  Your listeners have instant access to that information.

Being local isn’t enough.  You have to offer your listeners an experience each time they tune into your station.  With radio listening declining (Mark Ramsey’s Blog Uh Oh: Radio’s Reach Is Declining) you need to figure out how to have what listeners are looking for at your station.  I do believe if you are a local station you should be out kissing babies, showing up at concerts, making that local connection but it’s not enough.  If that is all you are counting on,  you are going to miss the boat when it sails.

Content Is king:  This means you have to bring something your listeners want.  Provide content they cannot find anywhere else.

Connection Is A Must:  You can have the worlds biggest cume but if you haven’t connected with your listeners it’s worthless if you are a non-profit radio station.  Just the other day I witnessed a station that uses mostly voice trackers and yet haven’t connected with their audience.  They would tell you they have great ratings with their voice trackers but they have failed to make a connection and now the audience simply doesn’t respond when asked to give.  It’s not all about cume but connection.  I’ll take a smaller cume any day if it means I have listeners who don’t want to live without my radio station.  I’ll also raise more money with the lesser cume.

Entertainment:  Look, music is easy to find.  I have thousands of songs on my phone.  I often stream from my phone to my cars radio and stream Spotify, Apple Radio etc…  Radio is no longer the gate keeper to my music.  I don’t have to call your radio station only to find out you don’t play requests.  I set up my phone, playlist and I am ready to rock.  Just the other day I was getting ready to drive from Nashville to Louisville.  I got in my rental car and as usual I began to set up my bluetooth connection.  My plan was to listen to my Spotify channel I had created with some friends.  While setting up my phone, the radio came on.  I couldn’t tell you what station but the personalities were very funny and entertaining.  I never listened to Spotify, at least not until I was out of reach of the radio signal.  I would have never listened to the radio for the music but the entertainment was awesome and they had me hooked.   As long as radio continues to compete with the phone or tablet for music, it will lose each time.  It’s like a flashback to when AM radio tried to compete with FM radio with music.  AM radio almost died.  Who wants to listen in mono, through static to hear poor quality music when I could just jump over to FM?  AM Radio had to change the game and they did that with talk radio.  I am not saying you don’t play music at your station, what I am saying is your show, personalities have to be so good that your listener will not go online to stream something, that they will stay with you, oh and you just happen to play music as well.

Radio is changing and it’s changing quickly.  Being local is not enough.  You have to provide an experience, have awesome content, make a great connection and have personalities on the air that are very entertaining.

Ben Milton

Unless you live under a rock you’ve heard that Taylor Swift pulled all of her music off of Spotify.  Her complaint (and that of every artist who isn’t named Dave Grohl) is that not enough money is paid by Spotify to the artist.  Spotify of course says that they pay a majority of their revenue to the labels and the labels are the ones preventing the artists from getting paid. The labels say there isn’t enough money coming in to share and it’s not their fault.  Big shock there, right?  It’s always somebody else’s fault.  Meanwhile radio has been real quiet about all this.  Why?

               Here is what Taylor and many artists don’t get and why radio needs to pay attention.  Artists complain that they only get $.004  for each stream of their music.  So every time someone plays a song the artist gets a measly piece of money.  You know how much an artist makes each time song is played on the radio?  Hint, it’s not as much as it is with Spotify.  It’s nothing.  Zero.  EVER.   Now writers and producers get paid but the artist doesn’t make a dime EXCEPT for the hope that the exposure leads to a CD or iTunes sale.

               So what exactly are the artists complaining about?  They don’t make a direct dime off of radio.  Not even a single cent!  Sure .004 cents a play or spin doesn’t sound all that exciting either but they aren’t getting that from radio.  And with the entire radio industry claiming simultaneously that listenership has never been better but that budgets have never been tighter it seems unlikely that radio is going to give in even that much.

               Let’s consider for a moment that a wise artist realizes this and talks to their smart manager, who sits down with the label and everyone realizes the same thing I did.  .004 of a dollar  is a TON of money compared to nothing.  Is it fair?  I don’t know.  Maybe, maybe not.

               Imagine that an artist makes about $4.00 for each CD/iTunes album sale.  At the current rate from Spotify a song would have to be played 1000 times to equal that same profit margin.  That’s more spins than I generally give an album.  Even one that I REALLY like so I think the argument could be made for increasing the profit for the artist in this case.  But on the other hand you know exactly how many people are spinning being exposed to your song.  That’s something radio just cannot do.  That kind of information is powerful and has a way of correcting a market that’s been based on speculation.  Music may not be as valuable as we thought it was.  Maybe the market won’t pay $4 to a an artist anymore.

               Here is why radio should be concerned.  Spotify may not be the most profitable way for artists to be paid but it’s the most accurate.  The radio industry subscribes to Neilson, which for all the money spent is still extrapolated scientific guessing and estimating of how many people are listening.  In DC 8-15 people coming in and out of the panel can swing 50,000 to 100,000 people in the sample.  That just kind of shows how fragile the whole system is.  Everyone has just agreed to not rock the boat and question it too much.  To Nelison’s credit they continue to work on making the samples larger and more accurate but at the end of the day it’s still statistics with a possibility of error.  They even tell you as much on the bottom of each report.

               Now think in to the future.  Digital media is becoming more and more a thing.  Ad buyers are looking at where to spend their money.  Spotify can tell the add buyer EXACTLY how many people are going to be exposed to the product.  Radio says “We think it’s somewhere around 100,000 people.”  If you’re smart with your money you’ll spend on the sure thing.

               If you are a label in the near future are you going to invest in a guestimated audience or are you going to put your shrinking budget in to areas where you know exactly your return?  Well, so far radio hasn’t had much competition in this regard.  But how long before Spotify, Pandora or some other streaming service generate enough listeners that labels start going to them first for releases and public relations stuff?  When radio isn’t the for sure go to for new music releases it’s going to have to rely on its talent and content.  An area it’s ignored and marginalized for at least 20 years.

Find Ben and his podcast at www.sometimesthereisgod.com

This is not my blog and I cannot post it all on here but it’s a must read from Seth.  I think at least it will get us thinking and talking about whats next.  I want your input on this blog.  I believe if radio changes, there is hope.  Do I believe that some stations will go dark?  YES.

BLOG:

Eight years ago, I described how city-wide wifi would destroy the business of local radio. Once you have access to a million radio stations online, why would you listen to endless commercials and the top 40?

READ MORE

Bill Scott

More listeners, more listeners, more listeners.  I am constantly hearing;  we are number three in the market, our morning show is number 1 in the market, we are number six and growing.  I also hear; our cume has gone up by 10 percent, 40 percent and we are on the move.  Don’t get me wrong, all of us need to be good stewards of our radio stations and yes we want folks to listen.  Here is where I have a problem and this is only for those who run a non-profit radio station:

I know I have written about this a few times but I’ll once again bang my drum.  I just don’t understand if you have a few hundred thousand listeners and just a few give to your fundraiser why that would be a good thing.  I’ve watched some stations triple their cume and not raise any more money.  It’s great more listen but now the vast majority of your listenership don’t care.  There is a connection problem.  We have to look beyond our cume and look at the health of our listening audience and the connection we have with them and we rate that by our fundraisers.

This fall I had a chance to be a part of a fundraiser.  I know for a fact that the station manager cares about how many are listening but he cares even more about how many his station connects with.  His fundraisers out produce some stations who have four times the listenership that his station has.  At the end of the day, I give him an A+ for making a connection with his audience.  Those that are listening to him are willing to rally around his station because they just don’t want to live without the station.  Can you say that about your listeners?

Hear my heart.  I am not slamming any station for having great ratings and a large cume but at the end of the day I want to know how many of those people care enough to keep you on the air.  As a non-profit we need to raise money and we do that by connecting with our listeners.  A listener that has a connection with their station will open their wallets and give both from their heart and finances when the need is made know.

I think we have gotten so caught up with the ratings and cume that we have lost what it means to really connect with our audience and at the end of the day that is an epic failure and will cost us financially, even if we are number 1 in the market.  To close I’ll say that it is possible to have a great cume and relate to your audience.

Bill Scott

Frankie Morea – WPER Station Manager

I almost feel guilty for passing this along for free.  I am joking of course.  My goal is to see Christian radio do well in their fundraising.

I’ve been a part of over 600 fundraising events, the vast majority through Share Media Services.  I’ve partnered with the PAR Network for the last 20 years.  Recently at WPER with the famous Frankie Morea as station manager we had an amazing idea during the fundraiser.  We hit the goal and moved on to their special project goal.  WPER was beginning to raise money for their new building and studios.  We had three hours and needed to raise over $100,000.  That doesn’t happen with $10 and $20 a month gifts.  I remembered looking at Frankie and saying, “Hey, if you have a new building, can you do the entry way in bricks?”  Frankie said yes

Listener finding their brick on The Legacy Wall

and the rest is history.  My idea was to have people give so they could have a brick with their name on it.  We called this project “The Legacy Wall.”

I love a good fundraising campaign and this was hit.  The Legacy Wall caught fire.  We simply asked for $1,000 for a family to have a brick with their name on it.  The phones were jammed with $1,000 givers.  It was the craziest thing I have seen in a long time.  Well over $100,000 came in during those three hours.  Every six months for the next 18 months, a total of three fundraisers, we used three hours on the last morning to ask people to join us with a $1,000 gift to be apart of The Legacy Wall.  WPER raised $367,000 with these bricks. 

This last Monday WPER opened their doors for an

WPER new building and studios

open house.  Over 500 people came by to see the new station, many wanted to see The Legacy wall.  This is a real connection point with listeners who wanted to physically be involved with the new ministry center.

I asked WPER’s Frankie Morea how much this wall cost the radio station, “We have less than $10,000 in the wall.”  What a huge return on the stations investment. 

My encouragement to you, think about how your fundraising can connect with your listeners.  You

Happy is behind the board. Brian Sanders to the left and Frankie Morea to the right.

might be surprised at the level your listeners will step up.  It all about touching the heart, when that happens the wallets will open and listeners will invest in your ministry beyond your wildest dreams.  You can see the picture of the new building that WPER just moved into.  They went from a double wide trailer to over 5,000 square feet that is 100 percent state of the art.  No doubt, God gets the glory.